The 39-year-old actor shaved his head and put on weight to star in David O Russell's true-life crime drama set in 1970s New York, and was recently photographed on set with a comb-over and slight paunch.

We take a look at other roles played by the Oscar-winning actor that required physical transformations - from his shockingly emaciated frame in The Machinist to his bulked-up buff body just one year later for Batman Begins.

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Christian Bale appears elfin and waif-like to play journalist Arthur Stuart investigating former glam-rock star Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Myers) in Velvet Goldmine back in 1998.
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